Coping Mechanism
by Heiress7Muzzy
Summary: In which Sherlock is John's imaginary friend. But John doesn't know that.


"You haven't been in to see me for over two years. Why now, John?"

He can feel the weight of his therapist's gaze boring into him. John coughs, ad shifts uneasily in his chair, fingertips drumming restlessly on his thigh. He desperately wishes he hadn't decided to come. The cheerily decorated room is too small, too confining; the very sight of the sensibly beige wallpaper makes him feel like he's suffocating. A steady pounding in his right temple warns him of an imminent headache of no doubt epic proportions coming on. He wonders what Ella will think if he just ups and leaves right this moment.

He watches as Ella's eyes flick down, towards where he's rhythmically clenching and unclenching his fists against the black leather upholstery. He makes a conscious effort to relax, letting his hands fall loosely to the armrests of his chair.

"It's – you know why, Ella, so why do I have to –"

"Because you have to say it. Because you need to hear yourself say it, John."

John pointedly ignores the look of compassion and empathy Ella is giving him. Even if she does give a flying fuck about him and his problems, he's still paying her. This is her job; it's what she does. She's paid to sympathize, to console. She can't possibly understand the pain, the loss, the grief that's he feels. He knows it's illogical, but he resents her and what she does, because she makes money by listening to people talk about their problems. Makes a living by feeding off their pain and misery. Maybe that's an unfair representation of therapists everywhere, but John finds he can't be arsed to care.

Instead of the 'Piss off' he can feel teetering on the edge of his tongue, John takes a deep breath, steeling himself. "My best – um, best friend – Sherlock Holmes – is d-dead." His voice didn't break on the last word – it _didn't_.

"How did he die?" Ella asks, voice calm. Soothing. Professional. Detached. John swallows past the lump in his throat, quickly stifling the urge to punch – well, something. Anything. His thigh, the chair, Ella's fucking face.

He takes another measured breath. He's been doing a lot of that lately. "You know who he is – _was_," he corrects himself, his heart contracting painfully, "Who he was, what he did. You know all of it – so why ask me?"

"Because you're the one who needs to –"

"– Don't fucking tell me I need to get it through my head, that I need to _say_ it in order to accept that it's real!" John yells, shocking both himself and Ella as he stands up so abruptly the chair skitters a few feet back, towering over his therapist in his rage, "Because I'm not deluding myself, okay? I _know_ it happened – I know Sherlock's dead – I saw it happen. Just, for God's sakes, stop telling me to relive it. I do enough of that every single night."

With a final glower at Ella, he turns and leaves, deciding against slamming the door at the very last second. He lets it click shut quietly instead.

He only realizes until he's back at 221B that he's left his cane behind.

xxx x xxx

The first time it happens, John is incandescent with rage.

John had bumped into Mike Stamford at a local pub, and the inherent British politeness and sense of common decency in John had stopped him from excusing himself and taking his leave. Which is why he's currently sat in a corner booth with the man, both of them nursing their second beer.

"How's your – um, how's Sherlock doing?" Mike asks, regarding John casually over the top of his beer mug.

John pauses, the mug pausing in midair, en route to his mouth. He blinks. _What?_

His confusion must show on his face, because Mike chuckles amiably and goes on, "You've not talked about him for a while. He still keeping you up at night with that awful violin of his? You look like you haven't slept properly in weeks, mate."

Realization dawns, along with the slow bloom of anger that unfurls in the pit of his stomach. He thinks about decking Mike for all of three seconds.

And then he actually does it.

That earns him a jolt of pain that travels from where his fist connects with Mike's jaw up his arm. Mike yelps, an undignified, indignant squawk of surprise. What's less surprising is that they both get kicked out of the pub.

Once John's more or less calmed down fractionally, he turns to Mike, who has a hand pressed to the side of his neck. "What was that _for_?" Mike demands, alternating between glaring at John and wincing at the residual pain from the punch. _As if he didn't know._

John stares evenly back at him. "I'm not sorry, you know. That was low, even for you – _especially _for you. You knew him for longer than I did – surely that means something to you?"

Mike's eyebrows have risen so high up they're in danger of receding into his practically non-existent hairline. He also looks, for lack of a better word, flabbergasted – as if he truly has no idea what John's saying. "Wait, wait, back up a second," Mike says, still frowning, "What d'you mean, 'knew' him? What's happened to Sherlock, John?"

For the second time this evening John struggles to rein in his temper. He mustn't punch Mike again. Really he mustn't. He really doesn't want to be charged for assault. Getting detained overnight would be tedious. Horrifyingly so.

"Didn't you watch the news, Mike?" he says through gritted teeth instead, "Sherlock's – he's – dead."

Silence. John glances at Mike. His mouth is open rather unflatteringly, and he looks like he's just been hit with a sledgehammer. (God, he's even starting to bloody _think_ like Sherlock now, isn't he.) Mike opens and shuts his mouth a few times before managing, "I – I didn't know – I'm sorry, John. Truly, I am."

John acknowledges his apology with a curt nod, then turns and leaves.

Only when he's back at the flat, does he realize he's left his cane at the pub.

xxx x xxx

The next time it happens, John is overcome with anger (and hurt).

He gets a call from Greg. John stares at the blinking screen of his phone uncomprehendingly, before slowly answering the call.

"Hello?" His voice is laced with uncertainty.

"We've got one you'll absolutely love. Locked room murder mystery. It's been weeks, John, surely you're bored by now. I'll text you the address. Please, will you come?"

"Me? You're asking _me_?" John parrots back, confusion his dominant emotion, as he tries to make sense of what Greg's just said. "You sure you're not mixing me and Sherlock up?"

John hears Greg heave a distinctive sigh down the line. "Sherlock can come too, if you like."

The mingled hurt and fury bubbling in John's chest has him throwing his phone across the room, where it lands with an unsatisfying _plop_ on the sofa, completely intact and still functioning perfectly.

John crosses the room, disconnects the call and checks his text messages, then grabs his cane and goes down to the street to hail a cab. He's at the crime scene in just under 20 minutes, rage still simmering beneath his calm exterior. He pushes past the forensics team milling about outside the flat (they part easily to let him through), looking for a certain silver-haired someone.

Greg, upon seeing him standing outside the taped-off crime scene, waves him over to where he's crouched over the corpse – mid-40s, diabetic, widowed (judging from the faint indentation where she used to wear her ring), death by asphyxiation (obvious bruising on the neck), cat lover (numerous cat hairs are stuck to the edges of her dress, but she doesn't own a cat, which means she either used to, or regularly fed the strays – the latter being the more likely option, seeing as how there isn't so much as a framed picture of her with a cat on the walls of her flat).

John shakes himself out of his reverie, pointedly ignoring how good he's gotten at deducing things (thank you, Sherlock), and focuses instead on what Greg's saying. What he's apparently been trying to say for the past minute.

"…what do you think, John?"

"Uh…" John trails off, unsure of how to answer a question he hasn't heard. In the end he goes with the safer choice. "I haven't – that is – I'm not the best person to ask, Greg. Maybe you should try someone else."

"What, like Sherlock?" Greg scoffs, rolling his eyes, "Come on, John, be serious. You didn't bring him along again this time, did you? Last time was bad enough –"

That is the point when John sees fucking proverbial red. He's on Greg before the detective inspector can finish, his cane clattering uselessly to the ground, as his hands automatically close around Greg's throat. It takes the intervention of three other officers to pull them apart. Greg sits up slowly, massaging his throat, and manages to croak out an order for his colleagues to not arrest John because everything's fine and under control.

The officers must not find it very reassuring, because John continues to be held in a vice-like grip, out of reach of Greg and his neck. It takes another 'It's fine, honestly' from Greg before John's released, although they only retreat no more than a few feet, so that John is within grabbing distance should he make another attempt on Greg's life.

"What the _hell_, John?" Greg asks, still slightly gasping for air, as he eyes John accusingly – as though it's somehow _his_ fault that Greg is a moronic imbecile (shut up, Sherlock, shut _up_).

"Will you just stop it? Stop this – please," John groans, blinking back the tears he can feel welling up, "You know what happened, Greg. You were partly to blame – we all were."

"What?" Greg's face scrunches up in confusion. "Come again? What am I partly to blame for?"

"His – Sherlock's – death," John manages to choke out, as despite his best efforts a traitorous tear slips down his cheek. "If you hadn't come and tried to arrest him, he wouldn't even have been on the run in the first place. So stop playing games and pretending it's all a joke, because it's not! He's _dead_ because of you and Anderson and Donovan and all the rest of you!"

He doesn't even give himself time to cherish the look of stunned surprise on Greg's face – the look a predator might have upon realizing that sometimes, their prey fights back. John simply turns on his heels and leaves.

It isn't until he gets back to the flat that he realizes. He's left his cane behind. He's been doing a lot of that lately.

xxx x xxx

It happens again. This time uncertainty is John's predominant emotion.

A particularly nasty infection in one of his patients has him bringing the man to St. Bart's for the required treatment, and after making sure Mr. Elliott is settled, John lets his feet carry him down the familiar path to the hospital's morgue.

"Oh – sorry!"

John's reflexes allow him to catch the wrist of the person he's bumped into, barely managing to keep the two of them from toppling over and down the treacherously steep stairs.

"Sorry, I wasn't looking, I – oh, hi, John!" Molly Hooper says, the embarrassed grin sliding off her face to be replaced with a genuine one. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"Yeah, it has." John grins back, because however shitty his life's been after – _after_, seeing Molly is always a good thing. She's been nothing if not helpful and supportive, and he finds her presence calming in and of itself. He definitely needs more calm in his life.

By silent agreement, the two of them shuffle so they're on the landing, rather than balanced precariously on the staircase.

"So – how's everything going? I'm guessing there haven't been any cases lately, huh?" says Molly, twirling a stray piece of hair absent-mindedly (John itches to tuck it back behind her ear), "If there were, you'd have been down to the morgue more often."

John blinks. _Was that a hint or am I overlooking things?_ The latter is infinitely more probable. "I – uh, yeah – no cases," he tells her, "But even if there were, I wouldn't be on them."

"What? Why?" Molly sounds dismayed, like the news personally affronts her on more than one level. She begins babbling. "Why won't you be doing cases? Is something wrong – John? Did something happen? You're not – oh God, you're not dying, are you?"

"What – no – Molly, calm down," he placates her, holding his hands out in front of him as though to soothe a startled cat. She certainly looks enough like one – with her slightly frazzled hair and too-big jumper, and the way one of her hands has found his shoulder and is gripping it tightly, as though she's afraid he's going to vanish into thin air. "I'm not dying, I'm not going anywhere – everything's fine."

John watches as Molly's shoulders slump in immediate relief, as she buries her head against the junction between his shoulder and neck, her voice when she next spoke muffled against the fabric. "Then why did you – Christ, John – you almost gave me a heart attack."

"I've no doubt I did," he says, only half-joking.

Molly pulls back and raises her head to glare accusingly at him, before playfully slapping his arm. "Stop trying to make this funny. Now tell me – what's going on? You love cases – it's everything you live for – and you haven't even stopped by to ask me for spare body parts for _weeks_. Are you sure you're alright?"

"I – what? Spare body parts?" John can feel his brows knitting together. "You sure you're not confusing me with Sherlock, Molls?"

"Sherlock?" Molly says the name like it's unfamiliar, like it's one she doesn't say often and isn't accustomed to the way it rolls off her tongue. "Who are you talking abo – oh!" John watches as her eyebrows widen in sudden realization, watches as she scrambles to cover her slip-up. "He's – that's right – your flatmate – the weird, eccentric one. Yeah, him. How's he doing? He still experimenting and making a mess of things and –"

"Molly."

"– he put a head in the fridge once, didn't he? You went on about it for ages and ages but you just couldn't stay mad at hi –"

"Molly," he cuts her babbling off more firmly, "What's going on?"

Her eyes skitter away when he looks at her, and her voice is unconvincingly high-pitched when she squeaks out a, "Nothing – nothing's going on."

"I'm not stupid, Molls. I've known you for years and even if I hadn't, I would be able to tell this is your lying face. It's pretty obvious, to be honest."

"I don't have a lying face!" Molly protests indignantly, "I'm just –"

"Extraordinarily easy to read, yeah," John mutters, before adding with a touch of impatience, "C'mon then, tell me – what the _hell_ is going on? Why does no one ever remember Sherlock, hm? Is this some sick way to help me get over his death? Because if it is, you can tell Lestrade and the others it's _not working_."

"Sherlock's dead?" Molly's hands fly to her mouth, the slight widening of her eyes and shocked gape of her mouth betraying her surprise more than any words could ever have done, "I'm sorry, John – I didn't know."

It's John's turn to gape, slack-jawed, at Molly. "What do you mean, _you don't know_? How could you, of all people, not know?" And okay, he can't be blamed if his voice has risen to a shout and attracted the curious glances of several passers-by, because how could _Molly_ not know? She'd been as much Sherlock's friend as John had been, if not more in some ways.

"Ssh, people are looking," Molly whispers, before grabbing John's arm and hauling him down the flight of stairs, until they reach the – erm, sanctuary – of the morgue. She lets go and sits herself down on an empty examining table, patting the spot beside her as she gestures for John to do the same.

He does so, leaning his cane against the side of the table, and turns expectantly towards Molly, eyebrows raised. "Well? What's the story?"

Molly fidgets, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. "I – why does there have to be a story? I just didn't know – is that really so surprising? No one told me, so I didn't know. End of story."

"No, it's not – that's not the whole story," says John, irritation prickling within him. _Why does everyone think I'm stupid and incompetent and incapable of handling the truth?_ "You're lying – all of you are. You, Greg, Mike, the entire fucking Scotland Yard. It doesn't take Sherlock bloody Holmes to tell when you're lying, alright? You've never even looked directly at me since I've brought up Sherlock's name, you're obviously stalling, and you're missing a date to talk about this with me, so evidently it's of some importance, so I'd appreciate it if you'd just _get to the fucking point_ already!"

"I – what? What date?" Molly asks instead, shock flitting briefly across her face before she visibly wrestles her emotions under control. She goes back to looking mostly calm.

John sighs. He doesn't have _time_ for this. All he wants to know is why everyone keeps playing this cruel trick on him. "You're wearing lipstick, expensive lipstick – I know because it didn't smudge the multiple times you kept licking your lips. That's most likely a force of habit, brought out when you're feeling nervous, probably to cover up the fact that you were lying. Aside from the lipstick, you're also wearing eyeliner, which I've seldom, if ever, seen you do – you obviously want to make a good first impression – so, online dating or a mutual friend introduced the two of you – knowing you, the latter is statistically more probable. The fact that you've styled your hair so carefully, and that when I bumped into you, the first thing you did was to fix your hair, shows how much you care about that good first impression, and that you're serious about him, even though you've probably only met once, informally. Which is why you should go now, before you're late – I wouldn't want to begrudge you your date."

John is hardly aware of the words leaving his mouth – his brain-to-mouth filter seems to have vanished into the ether – he simply looks, properly _looks_, at Molly, and lets the words come to him. It's surprisingly easy and refreshingly liberating. He wonders if this is what being Sherlock feels like. He _observed_, instead of simply seeing, as Sherlock would say.

He turns to Molly, expecting to see her shocked by his reel of deductions. Instead, she looks sad and… resigned.

"Oh, John," she sighs, gazing at him with sad, doleful eyes. John fights the urge to snap at her. "You know, for a genius, you can be incredibly stupid at times."

Whatever John expected her to say, it's not this. The words hit him like a slap to the face, and he flinches back, his response dying on the tip of his tongue.

"I – I'm not – what –"

"Yes, you are," Molly says firmly, talking over him, "You're the genius – it's only ever been you. Sherlock was – _is_ – nothing but a figment of your imagination."

John stares, unsure if he's heard correctly. He can feel the world spinning out of control, as his tenuous grasp on reality slips further and further away from him.

Molly pushes on, relenting. "He's been your coping mechanism ever since your return from Afghanistan. These last few years, you'd keep mentioning him in our conversations, talking about your brilliant, sociopathic detective of a flatmate, everyone else and I just went with it because otherwise you get nightmares –"

"No, wait – that's not – but – I _met_ him," John stammers, his mind a screaming cacophony of white noise, an endless litany of _nonononoSherlockno_ his only coherent thought. "Here, at St. Bart's – Mike introduced us – I met him," he says again, refusing to believe what he's hearing. Refusing to believe he's fed himself a lie all this time. _Eliminate the impossible_, he hears Sherlock telling him in his head, _whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth._

Molly shakes her head sadly. "No, John. You met me. Mike Stamford introduced you to _me_, and then you started hanging out in the morgue to experiment on corpses, and sometimes you'd sneak a few loose body parts back to your flat to experiment with. Nobody's ever lived in your flat apart from you, by the way – I've been paying for the other half of your rent ever since your therapist contacted me, a few years back. She said you had a different way of coping, that you sort of transferred all your pain into someone imaginary, so you'd be able function without the guilt of what you'd done in the war, but still carry on getting an adrenaline-fueled life. All that stuff about Sherlock being a _consulting detective_ – John, that was all you – the experiments and deductions and violins at night. Scotland Yard pays you for your services, though – if only you'd check your bank account more often you'd notice it goes up after every case you and 'Sherlock' –" here Molly air-quotes, "–solve. I remember you'd still go in to the clinic even if you were exhausted after a case. So essentially you were working two jobs. All of it was you – everything – you've just made yourself believe it wasn't. You're a brilliant man, and you see things that other people miss – just not this. You've been missing the biggest clue in your life this whole time."

Here Molly pauses, biting her lip, before finally looking up from the floor, looking straight at John. "Sherlock's not real, John, he never has been. You made him up."

And unfortunately for him, John can tell that (this time), Molly's not lying.

xxx x xxx

John counts the rhythmic ticking of the clock on the wall. _Seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four… _He hasn't said so much as a word since entering Ella's office. They sit in uncomfortable silence, him counting the slowly passing time, her staring impassively at him from behind the lens of her reading glasses, her mouth pursed in a thin, tight line.

_Seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy – _"Why did you do it?" he says abruptly, swinging his eyes from the clock to meet her bespectacled gaze. "And don't –" he sighs, holding up a hand to forestall whatever it is she now opens her mouth to say, "– don't tell me it's for my own good. Because what part of letting me believe in one of the greatest friendships I've ever had in my life and then to have it taken away is _good for me_? He's – _was _– technically never has been, but whatever – the bravest and wisest man I've ever known."

"It was for the best, John," Ella says soothingly, her eyes unblinking as she surveys him steadily. "The state you were in when you first came to me those few years ago – you'd probably have ended up hospitalized within a week, maybe less. Then one day you came in smiling, your limp gone, and you kept going on about this Sherlock Holmes you'd met. Everyone has different ways of coping, John. Naturally, I didn't know your Sherlock wasn't real until later, when I searched for his supposed website and found nothing. I had my suspicions, but they were only confirmed when I looked up your friends and rang a Miss Molly Hooper, who told me what was happening, and how much better off you seemed with your imaginary friend with you. We decided to leave the situation and just let you – come to your senses naturally. We assumed it would happen fairly quickly, but –"

"But you were wrong, weren't you." John's voice is quiet, with barely a hint of a tremor in it. His hands are clenched tightly into fists, the blunt edges of his nails digging sharply into the underside of his palm. "You and Molly, the two of you. You were fucking _wrong_. You thought it'd be alright to mess with my head – to let _me_ mess with my own head – and that I'd be the better for it, didn't you? You know what? I don't care if he's real or not – he was still a better friend than anyone else has been these past few years – and now he's dea – _gone. _God, I can't even give him a funeral or anything because he's not. Sodding. _Real_."

John stands up then, scraping his chair back and using his cane to support himself in the process. Ella eyes it mournfully, her face twisted in sympathy. John steadfastly ignores it. He doesn't want her pity.

"Well," he says, then pauses, wondering how best to phrase what he wants to say. "I understand why you did what you did," is what he finally settles on, "But you fucked up my life, you and Molly. It would've been far less painful to tell me the truth two years earlier. Which you didn't. So thanks for nothing, I guess."

With that John turns and leaves, leaning heavily on his cane.

This time he lets the door slam shut as he exits, the _bang_ ricocheting around him dooming and final.

xxx x xxx

That night, back at his empty (now more so than ever) flat at 221B Baker Street, for the first time in what must have been years, John prays.

"I was… _am_… so alone – and I owe you so much…please, just – one more miracle, Sherlock, for me," he murmurs, his eyes shut, his head bowed, with his hands clasped loosely in front of him, "I can't do this – not alone – this is the one thing I'll ask of you, please. Be _real_."

From behind him comes a deep, rich, rumbling baritone John's never actually heard before but would have no trouble recognizing – "I heard you, John."


End file.
